I was tidying up my shelves, and my diplomas and various certificates popped up. And putting them in order, I realized that fourteen years ago today (meaning June 8th, 2008) I got my Certification as a practitioner of Rolfing Structural Integration.
It was a turning point in my life and career.
Since I received my first Structural Integration session when I was 29 years old (now I'm 57), I felt so fascinated by the concept of “integration”, its meanings, and implications not only related to our body structure and posture, but also to our lifestyle, our way of perceiving the surrounding world, connecting to the environment, and of processing and expressing our emotions.
Since then, I kept exploring, wandering, searching, experimenting and experiencing other paths, and integrating more and more.
Integration, to me, means to find our wholeness, expressing and manifesting our whole potential in harmony with the surrounding world.
But in order to integrate, we have to differentiate first. We have to acknowledge, to become aware of all the different aspects, visible and invisible, of ourselves.
As a “renaissance woman” of present times, I keep connecting the dots between the realms of science, spirituality, and arts, and never stop acknowledging enlightening connections between the visible and the invisible aspects of life and of ourselves as human beings.
Even if apparently I stopped giving Rolfing sessions - meaning putting my hands on other people’s body to help them become free from restrictions and deal optimally with the gravity field - I keep practicing Structural Integration, through teaching mindful movement classes (Move In Mind, through the Morales Method® Academy of Structural Integration - MMASI™)), helping women achieve mind-body-spirit alignment, and doing everything I do.
There are pathways that are not just meant to give you tools for your practice.
There are pathways that give you knowledge of how the human being operates.
And once you understand that, well... you can’t forget it.
You can just explore more and more.
At least, I can’t help but keep exploring.
Gravity shapes our life, not only our body, and even if the connection between gravity and our so-called ego could be not immediately recognized, I am exploring right now this terrain, to understand how we can reconnect to our True Self and achieve more freedom from our ego, that is meant to serve us, not to dominate us - as it instead does most of the times.
Most of the time, we live controlled by our ego, which is not only the structure through which we can build a healthy sense of self, but also the sum of our conditionings, traumas, wounds, and longings.
In order to live a fulfilled life, we need to learn how to distinguish what belongs to and comes from our ego and what belongs to and comes from our true, authentic Self. Then we can start talking seriously about mind-body-spirit optimal balance and alignment.
But we cannot aspire to this balance and alignment till we keep confusing our ego and our authentic, real Self.
We can keep lying to ourselves, and feed our ego instead of nurturing our true Self.
But sooner or later, our body will speak to us.
Our body is the mirror of all the processes involving those aspects of ourselves that are less visible than a limb or any body part. Our thoughts, our emotions, our feelings…
Our body never lies.
It constantly sends us messages and holds the key to understanding who we really are, helping us connect to our inner wisdom and manifest our true Self through action.
I keep listening to my body and honoring its message.
I’ll share more soon. Right now I’m going to make a good cup of tea and celebrate all the encounters I have been blessed by, with people and pathways, all inviting me to keep walking on the path of integration.
PS In case you want to deepen, I wrote a book about healing and integration, "The Healing Attitude". You can find it HERE.
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